falls the shadow
by dustofwarfare
Summary: Even without blades, someone always ends up bleeding. (Seph X Cloud, references previous Seph X Zack)


**title:** falls the shadow  
**author:** **dustofwarfare**  
**pairing:** sephiroth/cloud (mentions of past zack/sephiroth) (set sometime post-AC; sort of in the same 'verse as "The Appointed Time")  
**word count:** 3695  
**rating:** mature  
**summary:** even without blades, someone always ends up bleeding.  
**AN:** The title is from T.S. Eliot's _The Hollow Men_.

**falls the shadow**

Sephiroth has Cloud pushed up against the side of a building in a Midgar alley, hissing, his lithe body vibrating with tension of a kind that has nothing to do with fighting. Sephiroth likes Cloud this way - trapped, wide-eyed, breathing like he's running straight towards a cliff and Sephiroth is the eventual fall.

Sephiroth finds games of _hunter and prey_ uninspiring, the imagery trite and predictable, too simple to be of interest. This dark dance of violence between he and Cloud, it is anything but_simple_. Sephiroth prefers his metaphors with a bit more sophistication and complexity, and to think of Cloud Strife as an antelope is ridiculous at best.

No, it is far more entertaining to think in terms of inevitability; rocks fighting against the tide that turns them into sand, night descending to suffocate the brightness of day, winter turning trees into nothing more than bones spread against a bleak sky. It is easy to cast Cloud as the stone that remains immovable beneath the waves ceaseless advance, the light that refuses to yield and contrarily turns the sky midnight blue, the leaves that cling like desperate lovers to barren branches.

Even that has its own problems, its own set of simplicities. Without a shore to crash upon, waves are forever caught in an endless, deep ocean with nowhere to go. Night is meaningless without a day to overtake. Winter, without something to kill, is nothing but cold. Sephiroth accepts this as he does most things. He is not Cloud. He does not fight every truth he does not like.

"Why do you always," Cloud snarls, the twist of his words lovely in some indefinable way, "Why do you always have to come _back_?"

Sephiroth traces the shape of Cloud's mouth with two black-clad fingers, but without touching him at all; he can feel Cloud's breath warm through the leather. Cloud's eyes are the sky at high noon in the flush of summer, infinitely bright. "Because without me, my dear Cloud," Sephiroth tells him, "You have nothing to fight. And what would you do, without one?"

"Yeah, well, how about we find out?" Cloud mutters, cranky. "Go away. Stay gone, this time"

Sephiroth traps him against the wall with nothing but his touch, the lightest brush of fingers against Cloud's jaw, his throat. "You don't get a choice, _Strife_," Sephiroth tells him, smirking slightly as he emphasizes the name - an omen, a curse, one Cloud fights as hard as he fights everything else. "To fight and never win, that seems to be your purpose in life."

"Fuck you. I've beaten you and won. Twice. And your pick-up lines could use some work," Cloud adds. His arms cross over his chest, defiant. Sephiroth would fuck him here, now, but he wants to take his time. He might do it anyway. Cloud would never have let Sephiroth this close without killing him yet, if he didn't want the same thing.

"You've never complained before," Sephiroth points out, and Cloud rolls his eyes. For a moment their inhumanity fades and they are two men, human enough, staring at each other in the glow of a fading streetlight in a Midgar alley.

"You don't really take complaints seriously. So I've noticed."

This banter makes Sephiroth think of things long buried beneath the dead earth his soul has become; the easy friendship of a black-haired soldier with a warm grin, mouth eager against his own, _it's all right, I can probably figure out what to do, I've read stuff._ These are memories he doesn't want to have. Cloud's fault, somehow, that he would think of them now.

Sephiroth is not the man who took Zack to bed that first time, without a clue what he was supposed to do once he got him there. Cloud is not Zack, full of eagerness to please and sweetly complimentary of what was, in hindsight, awkward and probably uncomfortable for the both of them. Cloud is also not the young cadet who used to follow Zack around like a puppy, staring at Sephiroth with shy, worshipful eyes.

Cloud is watching him intently, and there's some kind of fascination in those wide eyes of his, though it is tainted now with blood and darkness. He doesn't speak, but his hand raises up, hesitantly, as if he is going to touch Sephiroth before he drops it and looks away, mouth set in a grim line.

Sephiroth turns in a blur of dark black leather and silver hair, walking with even, measured steps out of the alley. He doesn't look back to see if Cloud follows. It's a long time until morning.

* * *  
Despite Cloud's recriminations and protestations that _this is a mistake_, which Sephiroth hears often enough that he could recite them along with him, Cloud is not a passive lover and never has been. He gives as good as he gets, his mouth as hot and insistent as Sephiroth's own, his hands on Sephiroth's body just as rough, just demanding.

That does not mean Cloud takes his pleasure easily, or without a struggle. Of course he doesn't. They've destroyed rooms before, broken furniture, put holes in cheaply made walls, simply because Cloud refuses to give in to what he wants, even when he's moaning for Sephiroth to give it to him.

Fucking Cloud is as exhausting as fighting him. Even without blades, someone always ends up bleeding.

It's worth it in the end, when Cloud is finally beneath him, every defense laid bare, features twisted from the sweet agony of pleasure. Sephiroth can feel Cloud's heels at his back, and at one point, they kick hard in silent demand.

"You could ask," Sephiroth says, his voice caught up and tangled in lust, "if you want it harder."

"I'm not -" Cloud's words are stopped by a moan; he's very vocal, which was surprising at first and is intoxicating in ways Sephiroth won't admit, though Cloud likes to pretend he doesn't make a sound. "I'm not _asking_," he growls, face flushed, staring up in challenge and defiance even though he's flat on his back. He kicks again, harder.

Sephiroth lowers his head and kisses him. Cloud bites him in response, and Sephiroth tastes copper and _ah, tonight it will be me that bleeds first._ He fucks Cloud harder, gives them what they both want regardless of who asked and how they did the asking. Cloud responds with a loud groan and arches up, palms on the wall behind him and pushing himself forward almost violently. Sephiroth gives a low growl and kisses him, braces a hand against the wall and it's like they're trying to see who breaks first.

It is easier, in some ways, to fight each other than to fuck each other. They give up more this way, too much, maybe, of things that are more precious than life. But when they both come, it is pleasure and nothing more - not fighting, not dying, not hurting or causing pain; in that moment, they are just _alive_.

Sephiroth looks down at Cloud when it's over, and Cloud looks back at him with a clear gaze that goes right through him, like lightning piercing a thunderstorm. Sephiroth wonders what he sees, if there is something Cloud is looking for, and if he finds it.

* * *  
Sephiroth knows Cloud's after-sex spiel about guilt by heart, but it's mild this time, only a few muttered _what the fuck is wrong with me, why do I let this happen_'s? And then he's surprisingly non-combative, running a hand through that ridiculous hair of his, eyes flickering occasionally towards Sephiroth in obvious curiosity.

"What?" Sephiroth asks, on a sigh. He can't help staring at Cloud's hair. He's touched it before, of course, has tangled fingers in the fair strands but they're usually engaged in other, more distracting pursuits when he does it. He knows it's soft, but at the moment it looks as prickly as Cloud, like he could headbutt Sephiroth and impale him with the spikes.

He's never seen Cloud's hair look any other way. Perversely, he wants to get it wet and see what happens, if it dries that way.

"I just don't…" Cloud shakes his head, eyes veiled by his lashes, hiding the Mako glow. He looks younger, like the cadet Sephiroth barely remembers, that young man trembling with rage and despair in Nibelheim. "Never mind."

"If you have a question, just _ask_," Sephiroth tells him, annoyed, and if Cloud is a cadet again then he's the General, tired of explaining himself all the time, forgetting that he owes no one any answers anymore.

"You'll just say something that will make me want to hit you." Cloud's gaze settles on his again, fiercely blue, and tugs at one of those spikes in his hair.

"I thought you always wanted to hit me."

"Well." A smile curves across Cloud's mouth, slowly. It's as close to a _suggestive leer_ as Sephiroth has ever seen him give. "Yeah. But maybe I don't feel like it, right now." He's still naked and it occurs to Sephiroth they're not done, here, and that's why Cloud isn't angry and suffused with his usual post-coital guilt quite yet. Maybe Sephiroth will have him ask nicely, on his knees. Fuck Cloud's mouth and listen to him choke, gasp, watch his eyes water and his determination not to stop even though he can't breathe...

"Ask your question, or don't," Sephiroth says, standing naked by the window, distracted now. They're at some cheap inn instead of Cloud's apartment, by some mutual agreement they never made in actual words. Sephiroth can see his reflection in the dirty glass of the window, can see Cloud sitting up behind him in the bed. The sheets are on the floor, along with a table and a one of the chairs.

Not too much damage, this time. They're speaking more than usual, too. Perhaps they're mellowing as adversaries. The uncharacteristic whimsy of his thoughts makes Sephiroth scowl to himself.

"I just don't know why you - what the fuck do you even get out of this?"

Sephiroth turns away from the window, his hair settling against his back. Hojo took his clothing because he was not to be allowed such modesties, as a way to make him feel vulnerable. Having his hair long was a small defiance, a way to hide, and he's kept it long ever since. He arches one brow, amused despite himself at Cloud's question. "That wasn't obvious…?"

Cloud, astonishingly, blushes a bit. The tips of his ears turn red. "No, I mean...besides that."

Sephiroth smiles, tongue touching the small hurt on his lip where Cloud bit him, earlier. "Surely you know the answer to that."

"You can't kill me, so fucking me is just as good?"

"Mmm." That's some part of it, certainly. Sephiroth has never liked to lose. "I could kill you. We both know that. And didn't I tell you this, once? That I liked fucking you _and_ killing you?"

"I could kill _you_," Cloud retorts, flushed now with anger. "Why do I bother asking you anything?"

"I don't know, since you won't let me answer the question." Sephiroth moves towards him, crawls up the bed towards him, slowly, giving Cloud time to react or run, if he wants. Cloud isn't in the mood, it seems, and doesn't do anything but give a half-hearted mutter and try and throw an elbow at his head. Sephiroth pushes at him, climbing on Cloud so he's straddling him. Sephiroth tilts his head, his hair falling around them like rain. "Do you want an answer? You want to know what it is I want from you, is that it? Other than how hearing you beg me for it is almost as satisfying as killing you with my sword?"

"Isn't that what I asked?" Cloud puts his arms behind his head. "I don't beg," he adds, but he can't look at Sephiroth when he says it, as they both know it's a lie.

Sephiroth kisses him almost gently on the mouth. "Do you remember when I saw you again, the first time, after you'd killed me?"

"...do you know anyone who would forget something like that? Of course I remember."

Sephiroth catches a laugh behind his teeth at the last moment. There are odd occasions where Cloud amuses him, but it wouldn't do to let him know it. "The way you looked at me, Cloud, the moment when you saw me for the first time...do you even know what your eyes looked like?"

"Surprised?" Cloud makes a sharp noise at the bite he gets in response to that, and bites back. They are momentarily distracted by kissing, sharp and heated like any other battle between them.

It is a few moments before Sephiroth speaks again, and when he does, his voice is decidedly rougher. "There was a moment when you looked at me like you used to, back when you said I was your idol. A moment when, I could tell, Cloud - you hoped maybe I was that man, instead of the one you had to kill. The one who slaughtered your town, your family. The one who killed Aeris."

Cloud goes still beneath him, even his breath is rigid, tense. Sephiroth smiles against Cloud's mouth. There's more than one way to make someone bleed.

"Miss the hero worship, is that it, _General_?" Cloud tries, but the pain is there and he can't hide it.

"Oh, no," Sephiroth assures him, pushing Cloud, wanting him on his back. He's hard, and can feel that Cloud is, too, even though Cloud is trying to dislodge him, trying to disentangle himself from limbs and hair and the other, more metaphorical ties that bind them together.

_No. Never. You will be the sand beneath me, you will be the light I never let free, I will strip you barren so there is nothing left for you to cling to, you are mine, Strife, always. Mine._

He catches Cloud's wrists and pins them, and it's not an easy fight, Cloud isn't playing. He doesn't like to be reminded of who Sephiroth is and what he's done, doesn't want to think about what he's taking to his bed.

"That isn't what made me want you," Sephiroth says, one hand pinning Cloud's wrists, the other grabbing a fistfull of hair and tightening, cruelly, forcing Cloud to look at him. "It's the moment when you realized I wasn't that man, Cloud. When I saw the hope in your eyes die. I wanted you so badly I couldn't _breathe_, do you understand?"

Cloud shoves him and bites his shoulder, and Sephiroth lets him, allows the struggle and then it becomes something else as it always does. In the end he has Cloud on his knees and he makes Cloud beg him for it, waits until Cloud asks in a voice that is cracked but never broken, _fuck me, do it, goddamn you, Sephiroth, do it._

And so he does, and he's lying, perhaps, maybe this is better than killing Cloud, just maybe, but Sephiroth won't ever tell him if it is.

* * *  
Sephiroth watches Cloud dress, later, as the sky begins to lighten beyond the window. Cloud never stays beyond dawn, when they are in places like this; anonymous, bought and paid for, easily left behind.

Cloud's self-hatred burns like embers in a dying fire, hot enough to fan back up into a blaze if you give it a little attention, put forth a bit of an effort, but not an inferno at the moment. Sephiroth is not inclined to put out any fires this evening, any more than he already has, so he simply watches Cloud and doesn't speak until he has something to say.

"You've never asked. Why I…let this happen."

Sephiroth resists the urge to roll his eyes. _Let it happen_, indeed. As if Cloud wasn't, on occasion, the one who sought him out. As if Cloud didn't, sometimes, climb on top of him and ride his cock with one hand clapped over Sephiroth's mouth, eyes blazing a warning while words fell unfettered from his mouth. "I know why you want this, Cloud."

Cloud's brows draw together, that fierce scowl that makes him look thunderous, provokes Sephiroth into almost - almost - making some pun involving Cloud's name and some other, more violent, meteorological phenomenon.

"I shouldn't ask, because I just know it's going to make me want to kill you, but what the fuck does that mean?" Cloud's chin tilts with a defiance that makes Sephiroth think, once more, of Zack. These thoughts are unwelcome intrusions, they have nothing to do with what is between him and Cloud and yet -

_You have a type, is all, Seph._

Zack's voice, soft in the quiet recesses of his mind. Sephiroth slams the door on the memory with brutal finality, his fingers curling into his palms. Cloud notices the odd reaction and looks at him, suspicious, eyes narrowing but not precisely angry. Almost concerned, though subtly, like he doesn't want Sephiroth to know. "What is it?"

"If our lives have seasons, Zack was my spring and Aeris was yours," Sephiroth tells him, bluntly, and it's the first time he's ever spoken of Zack to Cloud, or made reference to what they once were to each other. Predictably, the mention of Aeris makes Cloud's guilt snap to full attention, turning his earlier concern into the more easily recognizable hatred that burns away anything else.

Sephiroth is used to it by now, so he continues. "They were beautiful, unexpected, and they bloomed when we thought the earth was barren and dead. And we had them for as long as such things last, which is never very long, especially for men like us."

Cloud is staring at him, wide-eyed, his shirt held forgotten momentarily in his hands. "What? Men like...don't you _dare_ say that, as if I'm anything like _you_, you're a murderer and I - I don't want to hurt people, I don't!"

Sephiroth stands, slowly, approaching Cloud, who barely looks as if he's breathing. He slides gracefully into a fighting stance, likely without realizing he's even done so. "And yet they all die anyway, don't they, Cloud? Everyone you care about, that you love?"

Sephiroth puts his hands on Cloud's shoulders. His skin is shockingly warm, and Cloud is trying to go for his weapon but he's still shirtless, tired, and now caught up in emotion; which does him no favors as a fighter, certainly not against Sephiroth. It is inevitable that they will try and kill each other, as foregone a conclusion as fucking again. But now is not the time for that sort of play.

"Ah, my dear Cloud, don't you see? You're my summer and I am your winter. You try to keep things alive but you burn too hot to do anything but kill. And then winter comes, to wipe the slate clean again." Sephiroth watches him, calmly, waiting.

"You're fucking crazy," Cloud whispers, trembling, pain shimmering so beautifully in his blue eyes, exquisitely, achingly lovely.

"The brighter you burn, the darker your shadow." Sephiroth kisses him on the forehead, some benediction he's sure is unwelcome but is nonetheless heartfelt. "Chase me away if you want, but I'll always come back. Life and death, Cloud. We were created to destroy. There is no one for either of us but each other. Not anymore."

Cloud puts his head on Sephiroth's shoulder. He makes a sound like a sob, fingers finding Sephiroth's hair and grabbing on tight. Like he's trying to find a lifeline, something to keep from drowning. "All I deserve is you," he says, voice flat. He raises his face, tear-streaked, to gaze at Sephiroth in abject despair. "Oh, god. All I will ever deserve is _you_."

His heartbroken agony is so arousing, Sephiroth wants to fuck him again immediately. He takes such pleasure in this and every victory over Cloud, but nothing in his desire for the man's pain and suffering is born from a place of hate, not at all. If whatever he's become is capable of love, this is it.

Sephiroth's mouth tilts up into a smile. "Exactly," he murmurs, a pleased sort of purr, and presses his mouth to Cloud's temple. "Come back to bed and draw the curtains." _Hide in the dark with me. Let me help you stop burning, Cloud._

Cloud reacts predictably to that idea, pushing away and snarling something while he pulls on his shirt, slamming out of the room in a fury. Sephiroth walks to the window and looks down at the street until Cloud appears, a small figure with blond hair moving with purposeful strides away from the inn.

He stops before Sephiroth loses sight of him and turns around, looking back towards the inn, towards the window from where Sephiroth regards him. The sky is turning pale pink with the dawn. He can feel the soft flutter of his wing behind him, blocking the muted light from the room. He doesn't know if Cloud can see him. Sephiroth puts his fingers to his mouth and touches the pane of glass.

Cloud turns his back and walks away, heads towards the horizon. Towards the light.

_Go where you must, my summer sun,_ Sephiroth thinks, watching as the last remnants of night wash away with the sunrise. He drops the curtains and steps away from the window. _And I will be here in the dark. Waiting._


End file.
